The internet has changed more in the last twenty-five years than television has changed in fifty. Back in the late 1990s, we weren’t yet drowning in internet “content,” and short pieces written for a nerdy audience had a chance of grabbing attention for scrappy indie publishers. There were no blogging networks or platforms; hell, there were no blogs.
I was campaigning to get some attention paid to Fans, my first webcomic. But the early internet was designed around text. After doing the basics of early-internet promotion—getting my meta tags in order, getting a Yahoo! listing, adding my URL to my emails—I had to start thinking in terms of text to expand my footprint.
The irony was obvious: to promote my comic, I had to produce content that was not a comic.
I came up with a few different tactics. The most successful, relatively speaking, was “Tim’s Top Tens,” a set of top ten lists allegedly written by one of the Fans characters, Tim Mitts.
Tim was a stretch for me. I’m a reserved, gentlemanly type who likes to consider his words. Tim was an impulse-driven insult comedian. A fat, pimply slob, he knew that the world found him repellent and embraced that fact, even weaponized it. And when he ran out of real people in his life to offend, sometimes he speculated on how to offend fictional ones.
TOP TEN WAYS TO ANNOY PROFESSOR X
I know. It seems like a lost cause.
I mean, if some guy can read yer mind, he'll know how much ya really wanna see him blow his stack, an' he'll know better than ta give ya the satisfaction.
But that ain't no way ta think. Ya gotta remember, just cause somebody CAN read yer mind doesn't mean he's GONNA. If yer like me, ya got a lot of dark corners that most mind-readers aren't mature enough ta handle anyway. So try these methods an' think positive. But, ya know, not too loud.
10. Keep challenging him to a game of Tic-Tac-Toe.
9. Give him a "Star Trek Chess Set."
8. Mention the Pokémon concept of "evolution."
7. Pronounce "mutant" "moo-tant."
6. If he corrects you, say "Sorry, Professor Ksaveier."
5. Call him "Charley," "Chuck," "Chaz," "C-Man," "Captain Picard," or "The Nutty Professor."
4. Get the "Barney" theme song stuck in your head. Soon it'll be stuck in his!
3. Vandalize the X-Mansion by spray-paintin', "PROFESSOR X AND TOAD-- 2-GETHER 4-EVER!"
2. Hide his Lucky Charms.
1. Think at him, " I admire the fact that I cannot annoy you. I admire the fact that I cannot annoy you. I admire the fact that I cannot annoy you. I admire the fact that I cannot annoy you. I admire the fact that I cannot annoy you. I admire the fact that I cannot annoy you." Repeat.
Goofy articles like this got me a couple of extra Yahoo! listings. Those were the days.
Tim was a mainstay throughout Fans’ publication history, from about 1999 to 2012. I loved writing him—but some 1999 jokes wouldn’t “play” well today, and he grew up as the internet did. At some point, he traded in the porn, got himself a shave, started dating his co-worker after his first start-up went bust, married her, popped out a few kids…and maybe most surprising of all, landed a job in national security.
It’s hard for me to remember there was ever an obnoxious kid in me who came up with jokes designed to piss people off for its own sake. But I think it’d be hard for the grown-up Tim to remember that, too.